Taming the Beast (i.e. Carthage)

[Brizey]

So far MP is turning out to be too much like every other TBS game--see who can crank out units the fastest.

[Sperricles]

Ammendments

Friedrich heh heh I was expecting, and even counting on your reply, knowing how much you love the Carthaginians and how devastatingly well you wield them. And I respect greatly the insight and brutal criticism of many of my points. That's the whole purpose of this forum, and if the argument can't stand on its own legs it needs to be cut down and rebuilt to make a difference.

I can't beleive I left out the Great Wall....excellent point.

As far as cost I am comparing num mercs to spearmen for pillaging purposes

Thanks for the insight on Celts, I never play them, and had not been able to test it yet.

Anarchy is one of those lesser valued that was more of just an FYI


"a Jag is likely to lose" Agreed. But if your jags are planning on dealing with a Num merc you better send 3 of em at a time for the same cost, and he's not gonna stop all 3 with one merc.

Good point on the num merc explorer surprise. But as far as "Exploring warrior dying to num merc, and num merc reversing it?" I am still not completely convinced. First of all, that num merc will start exploring much later, and when he finds the warrior, he may or may not be able determine where the warrior came from, though he will have a rough idea. Also, if he kills the warrior, The other player will know he's out there exploring and can still prepare in plenty of time.

"FLOURISHES when left alone....Leaving Carthage alone is signing your death certificate!"
I agree absolutely, and want to clarify that although I recommended immortals and other units unbalanced on the attack side do most of the dirty work closer to home, I absolutely advocate sending good defenders to pillage .... just not the attackers as much, since your pillaging success is going to be much higher than attempts to take a city.

"Forify in the ugliest square he can" when coiming for your city. Also agreed, and needs to be adressed. Again the long battles are more likely to be won when attacking right out of your city center because of healing and defense, but fighting within your terrain is still the second most advantageous place to fight those num mercs. Indeed, don't let him walk right up to the city. But if he gets there, deal with him as stated earlier.

I await the next chopping

[Fried-Psitalon]

Churning out the most units wins? I would strongly disagree. It isn't about cranking out units the fastest at all- it's about using the units you do have in an effective manner. Have a good time cranking out your archer rush- if I have my city sitting on a hill, you'll have a lot of broken bows and broken backs in short order.

On the other hand, if you churn out 40 units and bumrush my cities, and I slide 5 in behind your army and pay your undefended capital a visit, I'd say that "churning out the most units" has earned you a fat lot of nothing.

Strategy will always triumph over numbers.

Especially ruthless strategy.

[Sperricles]

Smilies

P.S. As I am new here, I haven't gotten the full hang of smilies and welcome any help with that.

[eloquence]

Once again people are giving the Babylonians a bad rap and I feel compelled to come to their defence as they actually are fairly effective at dealing with the Carthagians. At least as much as one can be.

The bowman as a 2/2 unit is not one that the Carthagians will want to actually attack if they can help it as they don't have any advantage in doing so. This is helpful when on offence when you are pillaging their land as you can force them to make attacks that are not to their advantage. Granted, attacking cities is not advised and a good player will defend their land with more mercs, but here they are more vulnerable and hopefully by forcing them on defense you're not suffering back home.

If Carthage is attacking you, the bowmen on defense are still as strong as your spears are and are fairly effective. Also that same bowman can go on the offensive and help pick off damaged mercs and give you a decent shot at taking it down. Catapults also are very effective here on defence, if you can take the merc down a point or two then it will give a bowman a fighting chance at winning.

I admit that it's not a great situation to be in but still I think that it is more tenable than many of the other civs that you could be playing.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Ah yes, the Bowman can be a mighty unit indeed, but after you produce enough of them to bring your neighbors down, don't you find yourself lagging quite a bit in the war for culture?

[eloquence]

No as the Babylonians I've got the best culture potential of all the Civs since I get cheap temples and libraries.

Also in a multiplayer environment culture really doesn't play a factor at all.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Originally posted by eloquence
No as the Babylonians I've got the best culture potential of all the Civs since I get cheap temples and libraries.

Also in a multiplayer environment culture really doesn't play a factor at all.

Well, MP aside, I still find myself out-researched and out-cultured everytime I play as the Babs on a huge world. I dunno. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

[Sperricles]

Refactoring the Babs into the equation

Eloquence, thankyou for the great point about the Babs.
I have revised my rankings to try and account for them

1. Zulus
1. Romans*
3. Greeks
4. Persians*
5. Babs
5. Iroquois
7. Aztecs
8. Celts*
9. Chinese
10. Japanese
11. Ottomans
12. Egypt
13. America


I place Babs equal with Iroquois because of ability to defend the homefront (as you mentioned with catapult aid) It's very nice and appropriate to have those spearmen able to double as archers in the places you mentioned, good use of shields.

I place them under the Persians though since (only if iron can be found) the Immortals will pick off units even easier. Leveling the field to exclude iron, you will notice that the Babs fall in the top 3.

[Ghengis-Sean]

Carthage is a good unit bu the num has one major weakness, it's expensive. Early on Carthage can't build the num, so that's the best time to hit it.

In a multiplay enviornment, on a tiny/small map the Aztecs are the way to go. However any militant civ is just as good. Even after Carthage gets bronze working the choice is going to be num's or settler, they cost the same and Carthage can't build both at once. the very cost of their special unit is going to slow down Carthage's initial growth.

So even if you can't break into their cities, just by threatening them you force Carthage to not only build a nums to defend their cities, but to defend their settlers and their improvements. That's alot of production expended that could have been spent on city improvements or settlers. So the best way to go is just go over and start harrassing Carthage from the get go, and start by hitting workers. Industrious is pretty usless if you have no workers

[Fried-Psitalon]

By the same token, Carthage can do the same to you, however. (Side bar: Why does everyone say Carthage's unit is expensive? It costs the same as a vanilla swordsmen. It's a UU- an archer and a hoplite in one; bargain price if you ask me.)

If a spearman marches into your territory, you dispatch an archer or maybe two warriors and chase it off. If a Num Merc enters your territory, you've got to dispatch a fairly significant force- at least two archers (40 shields) or if the Hannibal is smart and heads for rivers and high ground when you march out to meet him, three, maybe FOUR archers - (60/80 shields).... two or three Num Mercs working in concert can nearly paralyze an opposing Civ's expansion, not so much with what they can do, but because of the effort needed to expel them.

A smart Carthage player, on the other hand, uses their road network to keep forward cities covered by rear-city garrisons, and slips forward city-garrisons down the roads to meet your marauders.....

That, my friends, is the reason that only the Zulu can reliably harass Carthage; their units stand a decent chance of winning against a Num Merc attack- Jags do not. The Zulus on a tiny map are mostly unbeatable anyway, though, since they can begin harass tactics immediately.

[Sperricles]

Ghengis-Sean, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to side with Friedrich on this one - You have greatly exaggerated the cost!

The cost question is not a matter of settler or no settler. If you are Carthage or anyone, you are gonna have to build something to protect your cities, and lets face it, when push comes to shove, if Carthage is not safe building warriors, then your probably not safe building them either. The result is that you end up building spearmen, and they build a numidian mercenary for a net difference of 30 - 20 = 10 shields. Divide by two if production is doubled and the 5 shield difference seems even less formidable.

Is 5-10 shields more expensive? Yes and No. It depends on what you compare. If you compare to a spearmen, you could say its expensive. If you compare to an archer, you might say its expensive. If you compare to a spearman AND an archer at the same time you are down 5-10 shields yourself. And how do you measure the price of a 3 defense that virtually none else even have the possibility of duplicating? Priceless.

The fact is that the numidians versatility on offense or defense is what makes it cheap. The bonus is that the difficulty to kill also makes them cheap, because fewer units will need to be replaced.

So unless you are the Greeks, the Babs, or have Zulu Impi movement and defense, the cost difference will be overcome and reversed on you quite easily.

Turning attention to Friedrich now. Zulu argument makes sense. I will also concede, Aztecs even outnumbering you 3:1 will lose 1 unit per merc, and will be less effective if the game continues and the swarm is more easily responded to. I think there is a breakpoint depending on how soon they find you and how close they are, that really determines Aztec swarm success. But depending on pure luck placement is not safe. One last question? Zulu, Zulu.....ok......but based on the same argument you gave above why do we hear so little from you about the greek hoplite as a harrassment response to Carthage?

[Ghengis-Sean]

To address the comment that Nums aren't expensive;

Early on in the game nums are very expensive, you start with one city, it will take you around 10-15 turns to crank out one num. More importantly though Carthage can't start making nums unitl it gets bronze working.

If you're on a small/tiny continent any militaristic civ can come over and pound on you at will with their measely archers. A good trick for china is to sick their workers on nearby trees to crank out bowmen extra quick for a quick grab against their neighbors (or Carthage)

The aztecs have perhaps the best viable first strike, but other civs aremd with only the simple warrior can bang away. Even after Carthage gets nums a smart player will simply dump warriors on Carthagenian territory. A fortified warrior on a hill stands a good chance of killing the vaunted num, remember its only a 2/3, and early on an expensive one. Early harrasment against carthage is the best way of keeping carthage from becoming a menace. kill his workers, destroy his mines and go after his settlers. Eventually carthage will get bronze working, but much later than if he is allowed to pursue it unimpeded.

so essentially hit him early and hit him hard. The aztecs are good for this, but so is germany which can build archers AND spearmen from the word go. Carthage is epecially vulnerible early on, so thats the optimimum time to clip his wings.

[Sperricles]

uhhh no

we all know how easy it is to say build a settler, while bronze is researched, and then switch to numidian right when you get it. The timing is not that tough. For your 20 shield archer to get there, he better do it in 3 turns or he will meet a numidian. Any decent Carthage players can have his first numidian up within 8 turns. You better be praying for a tiny map to get your archers there that fast. The argument just holds no weight.

[Dominae]

Sperricles and others, very nice discussion on an often overlooked civ (at least in SP). I'll chime in on a few points:

1. Game settings

A lot of the disagreements above are rooted in the various game settings that people usually play, specifically world size and difficulty.

For Tiny maps clearly the Aztecs are a formidable foe early on, while on Small maps their power decreases greatly with respect to rushes (they're still great scouts). Similarly, the early pillaging power of the Numidian is greatly diminished the larger the map. As a general rule, the larger the map, the worse early pillagers are (Greeks, especially) and the better the Expansionist trait is.

Also, researching BW in 8 turns is simply not possible on the higher difficulties, even on a River start. Cranking out UUs as quickly as possible also not recommended when you usually need a Warrior or two to do MP duty.

2. Numidian Merc. cost

I agree that the Merc is best compared to Swordsmen, and thus are a bargain. But the extra ten Shields is quite significant. A nice city-site with 3 Bonus Grassland tiles (all mined) produces 7 Shields per turn when a size 3. Assuming this city does nothing more than produce Mercs, it can get one out every 5 turns (with waste, but this can be dealt with). Producing Spearmen in the same situation yields a unit every 3 turns. Thus, there are two options that render the Merc cost-effective: 1) use them offensively, or 2) produce only a few, hoping they act as an deterrent to enemies eyeing your empire. The point being that there is a place for Warriors when playing the Carthaginians, since the Mercs cost too much not to be used to their maximum potential.

3. Late-game potential

I must disagree with the claim that Carthage is an early-game civ. Yes, the Merc is an important unit (to say the least), but the Industrious/Commercial combo is (IMO) the builder duo of choice. Going into the Medieval age, the Carthaginians on average should have the largest, most productive empire. This is especially true on maps larger than Tiny, where Carthage may not be involved in early fighting at all. In this case the Commercial trait really kicks in, allowing more cities to contribute fully.


Dominae